For many years, the Pittsburgh region has been working to grow technology businesses and jobs, and we've had a number of major successes to celebrate. But how big a role do technology businesses actually play in our economy, and how does our technology sector compare with that of other regions?

It's actually quite hard to define and measure the "technology sector." Some people use very broad definitions that include almost any business that uses sophisticated technologies to deliver products and services, ranging from steel mills to hospitals. But when most people think of "technology businesses," they're thinking of businesses that primarily deliver cutting-edge products or services such as new drugs, medical devices or sophisticated computer equipment and software.

Although it's difficult to obtain job creation data for many of these more narrowly defined technology businesses, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are available on four types of technology industries that the region has been working to grow for some time. Two represent the core of the life sciences sector: pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing, and medical equipment and supplies manufacturing; two represent the core of the information technology (IT) area: computer and electronic product manufacturing, and computer systems design.

In 2009, these four industries employed a little more than 20,000 workers in the Pittsburgh metro area. That's a lot of jobs, but a relatively small part of the economy -- only about 2 percent of the total private sector jobs in the region. They are, however, very high-paying jobs; average annual pay is around $60,000 in the first three industries, and it's around $77,000 in the computer systems design industry. That's significantly higher than the $44,000 that the average private sector worker in the region makes.

These businesses are typically quite small. Those 20,000 workers are employed by more than 1,150 separate businesses -- there are fewer than 20 workers per firm on average. The computer services businesses are the smallest -- an average of 10 employees per firm -- while the medical equipment and supplies firms are have an average of more than 30 employees per firm. The small size of the firms is partly a result of the relative youth of these sectors in the Pittsburgh region, but it also reflects the fact that cutting-edge products are most often developed by entrepreneurs in small startup firms.

Despite two decades of regional efforts to grow the information technology and life sciences sectors, Pittsburgh is still not among the top 10 regions in the country in employment in any of these four industries.

The largest of the four is computer systems design; our region had more than 800 firms employing more than 8,400 workers in 2009, but 28 of the 36 large regions for which data are available had more jobs in that sector than Pittsburgh did, including both Columbus, Ohio, and Cleveland.

Close behind in terms of jobs is computer and electronic product manufacturing; we had 150 firms employing more than 8,100 workers in 2009, but half of the 32 large regions for which data are available had more jobs in that sector than we did, including places like Baltimore and Milwaukee.

The medical equipment and supplies industry is smaller than the others -- 108 firms employing more than 3,400 workers in 2009 -- and at least 13 regions have more jobs than that, including Denver and Indianapolis.

The pharmaceutical industry is extremely small here -- only seven firms employing about 300 people, fewer than most regions in the country.

How did the technology sector fare during the recession?

The computer systems design industry actually added more than 700 jobs, a 10 percent increase. However, the other three sectors lost a combined total of more than 1,600 jobs between the end of 2007 and the end of 2009, more than offsetting the gains in computer systems design jobs.

In addition to losing jobs, we also lost five medical equipment companies and three computer and electronic product manufacturing companies, which will make it difficult to get those jobs back during the recovery.

The relatively small size of our IT and life sciences sectors means that we need to focus more attention on them, not less. In the future, opportunities for job creation will increasingly come from businesses in these and other technology sectors.

In fact, the medical equipment and computer products sectors now represent more than one out of every eight jobs (13 percent) in our region's shrinking manufacturing sector.

We have a rich resource of cutting-edge ideas in both IT and life sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, but we need to work harder to ensure adequate startup capital, technical assistance, facilities, workers and ongoing financing to enable entrepreneurs to turn those ideas into successful and growing companies.

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